Fourth Down Conversion
by hadaka
Summary: The act of using a fourth down play to make a first down.
1. superstar

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Warning:** This is **yaoi**.

**Summary:** It's only a year after Agon left him that Sena finally understands why.

Based on two of the themes from the 30 Kisses Themes from the 30_kisses lj. Not official, not posted there.

07. **superstar**.

* * *

It's only a year after Agon left him that Sena finally understands why.

He didn't really make the connection, not back then. He isn't sure how that is. Maybe because he thought Agon had gone beyond that kind of childish pride. Maybe because he thought Agon was so arrogant that nothing like that could affect him so much. Or maybe because, deep down, no matter how stupid it is, Sena wanted to believe that Agon was a better person than that.

"Idiot," says Yoichi. His hand rests possessively on the back of Sena's neck. "Don't you get it? He was jealous."

Where had it started? When Sena received that scholarship to Notre Dame for his sophomore and senior years and left Enma? When he was placed in the starting line of the Fighting Irish in the two years of their miracle comeback as perfect record holders and Bowl winners? When, after two years of being Bowl MVP and a Heisman winner and being hailed as the greatest running back in the NCAA, he was first overall pick in round one of the NFL Draft?

"He couldn't stand that he never made it out of Japan and you did," explains Yoichi, without Sena having to ask. "That's why you never hear from anyone except the fucking monkey and the midget anymore. You're the only one who got out. And you didn't just get out—you have everything. How are those idiots supposed to swallow that?"

They call it the Murakami effect. The first Japanese to go from Japanese college football to NCAA Division 1 football, there was a lot of talk at first about how his unbelievable success as a player signaled a new era of Japanese players in American football. Several names consistently came up in the press and during talks at universities—Yamato. Kongo. Kakei. Akaba.

Hiruma.

But, somehow, nothing really happened, though Sena stayed the rising superstar of the pro football world, and after a while people seemed to forget that Sena was Japanese (naturalized American, now) and then all anyone mentioned about him was how short he was.

(He still gets called a traitor sometimes, when it gets brought up that he could have qualified to participate in the Olympics in the men's athletics program on the Japanese team, or how he passed on participating in the X-League and let himself get drafted by the NFL straight out of college football. His mother cried when he told her he was going to take American citizenship, but both his parents said they understood. It was the sensible thing to do, now that his life was in the United States and he only came back to Japan to visit. Sena just agreed, because he didn't know how to put into words that giving up Japanese citizenship didn't seem like such a loss now that there was nothing left for him there.)

Sena remembers how it hurt when they cut off contact with him, one by one. It was just after he came home from the Draft to find that last e-mail from Agon, the one that told him in no uncertain terms that he shouldn't bother coming back to Japan except to see his parents. The first was Yamato, and the last was Jyuumonji. Between them, everyone else, except for Raimon Taro and Kaitani Riku.

And even Monta and Riku don't talk about amefuto anymore. Now, every time he receives an e-mail from one of them, he wonders if it's the last.

(Mamori still writes. Suzuna doesn't. That seems about right.)

Sena glances at Yoichi.

Yoichi grins, baring sharp, white teeth. In his rimless glasses and gray suit, he sits back against the sofa, relaxed and predatory at the same time. He looks like the ideal millionaire corporate investor.

When he kisses Sena, he tastes like the sugarless gum he's addicted to and six years of waiting.

"Don't be stupid," says Yoichi. "I've never been ruled by pride."


	2. kiss

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Warning:** This is **yaoi**.

**Summary:** All the things that have hurt Sena the most seem to have begun with kisses.

Based on two of the themes from the 30 Kisses Themes from the 30_kisses lj. Not official, not posted there.

30. **kiss**.

* * *

All the things that have hurt Sena most seem to have begun with kisses.

When Kazuki kissed him in his second year of high school, it was exhilarating and terrifying all at once, as if Sena was falling through air without any sense of direction. It was after the Ojou game, when the locker room was empty except for them and Kazuki was telling him how worried (angry) it made him when Ojou's Shin pulled him down (all right, maybe jealous). In an impulsive second Kazuki went from bully to older brother to something else where their mouths were touching. The memory of it was almost enough to ease the pain of what came later, when Kazuki abruptly stopped taking his phone calls, ignored him outside of practice, and started going out with a cheerleader from Kyoshin. Four months after that, Kazuki admitted to him over an awkward call that he'd made a terrible mistake. But by then it was far too late, and Sena hung up the phone to Kazuki's silence.

(Toganou and Kuroki told him that Kazuki was an idiot and really sorry and the whole thing sucked. Sena told them it was fine, he didn't think about it anymore, and then there was nothing left for anyone to say. If anyone else who noticed the tension between the captain and the center thought anything at all about it, they didn't bring it up. Not even Yoichi, who spent a week looking satisfied.)

At Enma, in Sena's freshman year, Takeru came to visit from Saikyoudai and didn't say a word about how Kazuki was doing. Instead, he took the 360 controller from Sena's hands after their second hour of ODST and then took Sena's face in his hands and kissed him. It wasn't as dizzying or as sweet as Kazuki's was, but Sena was breathless anyway. There was almost a sense of inevitability to it, like the planet had just been stalled on its axis waiting for this to happen since the moment they first saw each other at Teikoku. Sena remembers thinking at the time that there was no way it could work, because people like Takeru (all model height and athletic genius and disarming smile) didn't stay with people like Sena (all...not that). Except this time it was Sena who stopped taking Takeru's calls, after he found out about the girl who was assistant manager at Saikyoudai. (Because even less-than-flawless beings have their pride, which was pretty much all that kept him standing and composed when Mamori told him.) Several weeks later, Takeru showed up at the apartment Sena shared with Monta to swear he'd broken things off with her, but by then it was far too late. He'd learned from Kazuki how not to forgive (because love and forgiveness just isn't enough, especially when they're only on one side).

When Sena was nineteen, Yoichi kissed him for the first time. But Sena had known for a while that Yoichi had been wanting to do it since Yoichi had been sixteen and Sena fifteen.

But it was far too late, because Agon had kissed him six months before, and for some reason, Sena hadn't told him to go away.

(Lonely, to be honest, and irritated, because Monta is friends with Honjo who is friends with Takeru, which means that every now and then he can't avoid seeing them all at once and Takeru won't stop calling occasionally to _say hello_. Letting a Kongo take him to a motel to get the Yamato to stop calling seemed like a good idea at the time. He just never expected it to drag out this long, and sometimes wishes he'd picked the other Kongo, who would have accepted it when Sena tried to break things off with him.)

"I'm sorry," Sena said.

Yoichi only looked at him, a weighted, indecipherable (but since when has Yoichi ever been decipherable) look.

"I know," said Sena, answering what Yoichi hadn't asked.

(Sena didn't need Yoichi to tell him that Agon would hurt him. But Sena did wonder, still wonders, if Yoichi knew that Sena had already tried to break up with Agon several times, and had had the bruises to prove it. Monta could have told him, but Sena doesn't know if Monta ever did because they never talk about it. Monta almost hit Sena himself when he found out about the whole Agon thing, and things haven't really been the same between them since. This isn't an excuse, but at the end of the day, Sena was just so tired of fighting with Monta and ignoring Takeru and wondering what's so wrong with him that people keep taking off that he didn't have the energy to commit to breaking up with Agon. He wonders sometimes if Agon knows that Sena stayed with him out of exhaustion, and then Sena wonders if this means that he was the bad guy in the end after all.)

"If it's like that," Yoichi said, "we shouldn't talk for a while."

If Sena had known that for a while meant two years, he would have thought of something better to say. But all he had at the time was "All right.", and when he knew what he wanted to tell Yoichi, it was far too late.

(Anyway, Yoichi turned out to be sort of a liar. The caller ID always showed Private when those three a.m. hang-ups came, but Sena knew who it was. Only every so often, every few months, when Sena supposes it'd been a particularly terrible day. So he always lingered for a few seconds, sleepily murmuring _hello, hello_ into the mouthpiece, until Agon told him to shut up and go back to sleep or took the phone from him or Sena fell asleep with the phone in his hand or the caller hung up on his own.)

When Agon left him two years later, two years of long distance phone calls cut short and holidays spent fighting and a growing silence between them (and cheating, Sena is sure, though Agon didn't let on and Sena hardly ever thinks about the one time he came so close to it himself, that week in New York when he ran into Patrick again and Patrick had just gotten divorced for the first time), Sena was staring at that last e-mail when his phone rang at eleven instead of three.

"Come downstairs," Yoichi's voice told him, and there he was, on the street outside Sena's apartment building, in a fitting black suit and his first pair of rimless glasses and his natural black hair, twenty-three and already one of the giants of Japanese foreign investing. (And Sena wonders at the timing, sometimes, wonders at how Yoichi knew exactly when to be where and why, but he doesn't ask because it doesn't really matter.)

Sena knew that Yoichi wanted to kiss him then. He'd been waiting for two years, after all. But Yoichi had matured in his tactics, so it didn't happen for another three months, until after Sena came home one night from practice to find that Yoichi had moved in and half the clothes in his closet weren't his.

He spent a year waiting for Yoichi to leave (or get bored, or find someone else, or realize he'd picked the most boring NFL superstar alive to live with, or decide he wanted something better than used goods, or get elected President of Earth and tell Sena to move out to make room for all the Nobels). After the second year, he got used to Yoichi being there and stopped saving the realtor's phone number.

A month after that, Sena opens the door one Wednesday afternoon to find Agon there.

"Sena," says Agon. He takes Sena's face in his hand (all gripping and possessive and greedy, like he's always been, some things really don't change) and he kisses Sena.

Sena's so surprised, he doesn't move. Agon's mouth on his (insistent and imperial and take-no-prisoners, as if this is his right) is like a memory come to life.

Only it's not exactly the same. The dreadlocks are gone, replaced by a short sportsman's cut that becomes him even more than the dreads did. He's wearing slacks and a fitted shirt, obviously stylish and more expensive than anything Sena owns, probably including the apartment. For the most sought out and highly paid running back in the NFL, Sena doesn't really know how to spend money. It sits in savings accounts and securities and stock portfolios when it's not buying travel itineraries for his parents or rescuing cats in Los Angeles and Tokyo or being invested by Yoichi's capable hands.

Agon looks good. Being a football player has brought him more recognition and success than American football ever did. Sena isn't surprised that he wears fame and international adoration like he was born to it. He's just surprised it took him so long.

And when Agon draws back, his hands are on Sena's shoulders and he's got a look on his face that Sena can't remember from three years of not quite knowing what he was doing.

"I'm coming back," says Agon, and Sena is speechless, because that's the closest thing to an apology he's ever heard from Kongo Agon.

Strangely, Sena doesn't cry. He thinks maybe it's because he spent the last of his tears on Agon the first time he left, or he's finally growing up, or maybe it's because Yoichi is at work but Yoichi's spare glasses are in the study desk, Yoichi's clothes are in the bedroom closet, and Yoichi's spare laptop is in the living room, in front of the flatscreen they bought together.

(He's accused Yoichi of being territorial before, of being unable to stand it until every inch of everything around him is totally his, the way cats rub themselves all over things. Yoichi always gives him that slightly proud, vaguely disappointed look, like Sena's getting every part of a complicated equation right except the answer.)

_I'm sorry_ is what Sena usually says in this sort of situation, but he doesn't because he isn't, not really. And he's not really sure how to tell Agon, who now has everything he resented and left Sena for having, that it is far, far too late for them, and so instead Sena says nothing and just slowly, slowly closes the door.

It's probably a mark of how much Agon has changed that he only hits the door twice before he leaves.

(He might come back. He might not. It doesn't matter.)

Sena goes out a while later. He wants to run, and he goes to the nearest park and follows the jogging path again and again, until people start recognizing him and he has to leave. Then he runs by the river, flying along, remembering Deimon and Enma and all those people who used to be so important to him (and how they're just faces now, all those people who passed through his life and refused to be held on to, all those people Sena had, for some reason, thought were so, so important when it turns out there's only ever one or two people at any given time who really mean anything, and one of them's been waiting patiently for Sena to notice him all along, from the very beginning).

When he gets home again, Yoichi is there. The apartment is a mess, pieces of furniture and clothes and glass everywhere, and Yoichi, collar ripped and throat hoarse from shouting, looks at Sena with his mouth open like he's seeing a ghost.

(Sena still gets those calls, sometimes, late at night or early in the morning, when he's away for games or visiting his parents. Yoichi still doesn't say anything, but Sena doesn't have to pretend he doesn't know it's him now, so instead of _hello, hello_, Sena can say things like _Practice was terrible today, everyone came in hungover._)

"Sena," says Yoichi. His voice is stiff, and Sena realizes Yoichi knows Agon was there (of course he does) and Yoichi must have come home to an empty apartment and assumed (but he never assumes) without checking the closet or the safe first.

He's never seen Yoichi vulnerable before.

"Yoichi," says Sena, and steps over the shattered pieces of their coffee table into Yoichi's arms and kisses him.


	3. overflow

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Warning:** This is **yaoi**.

**Summary:** It's just a matter of public opinion.

Based on one of the themes from the 30 Kisses Themes from the 30_kisses lj. Not official, not posted there.

**A/N:** People who actually know stuff about football! _Please don't hurt me._

27. **overflow**.

* * *

"It's just a matter of public opinion."

Sena doesn't say anything. There probably isn't any point, and anyway, he doesn't know what would come out of his mouth if he opened it.

(Yoichi would say something about how Sena never knows what's coming out of his mouth until he opens it. Then he would ogle Sena until Sena blushed, which he still does even after three years.)

"Your personal life is your personal life, of course. But some of the other players and the owners have expressed…concerns."

How much has Sena given up to get to this point in his life? Since the first year of high school it's been his goal to play amefuto for as long as his legs hold out. How many times did he think that wasn't going to happen? That he would wake up one day to find himself the carbon copy of his dad, a salaryman and husband, father to a small child or children who may or may not be exactly like him? And how many miracles has he had to pull off to see the dream through?

(How many people has he lost?)

"It's just a press conference, Sena. At the end of the day, it doesn't mean anything. Just say what they want to hear and move on. We'll run damage control on the tabloids."

Sena has no illusions. He knew this country for what it was when he raised his right hand and took the oath. Granted, at the time he didn't foresee this being a problem. Agon had just left him, and Yoichi had just come back. Then, Sena still expected everything to end sooner or later.

(Maybe part of that's still true.)

"Seriously, Sena. Don't do this now. Think about it. Your new contract's just started, your team's lossless for the season—you're in line for the fucking Super Bowl! _Again!_ This is record-breaking territory, Sena. This is it! This is your entire career! You don't _need_ this kind of controversy."

How much has he given to his career already? All but one of his teammates. Every single one of his friends. All of those long-ago friendships that he'd thought were for always. His family. His country. His life.

(He's really only got one thing left.)

"All right? Now let's go out there and just give them that statement. Five sentences. We'll stress your right to privacy and how we're going to prosecute for slander. Three weeks and this'll be gone."

Three weeks of what? Lying? Living by himself an an apartment that's half-empty? And what comes after that? More lies and more hiding, watching what he says and being careful where he goes, all for the sake of his career. Because _people_ would be too _uncomfortable_.

And Yoichi would do it, too. If Sena asked. He would do all of it, and never show Sena, even once, even _slightly_, how much it was hurting him.

(Those three a.m. calls might get a little out of control, though.)

"Let's do this."

The press room is packed to the ceiling. The bulbs go off even as the door's opening, and then Sena's manager is leading the way to the table with the mics. Journalists and sports writers and sports anchors are yelling questions at him. To one side of the room, Sena sees a couple of the owners, a bunch of the handlers, a fistful of agents, and even a few of his teammates. They're all looking at him like they've never seen him before in his life.

(And Sena _still_ can't figure out why this is such a big deal.)

_"Is it true that you're living with—"_

_"Do you deny that you were seen with—"_

_"Is there any substance to the rumors of you and Patriots running back Patrick Spencer—"_

Sena wonders if Panther's been having trouble. He doubts it. Three marriages and three divorces and it looks like Panther's on his way to a fourth of both with some low-key celebrity. And Sena's never told anyone about that one summer four years ago.

(Yoichi doesn't like it when Sena meets up with Panther every now and then. Sena doesn't know what else he can say to reassure Yoichi, so he just makes sure it's always in group settings. Not that Patrick's tried anything. Recently.)

It's so surreal to sit at that long table, manager to one side and one of the owners to the other. The mics hang in front of him in a mass of wires. Someone in the back row is wearing a jersey with his number on it, and Sena thinks it's strange that a fan was allowed into the press room but appreciates the gesture of support anyway.

When the manager raises his hand, the room settles into something almost quiet. "Mr. Kobayakawa has a statement prepared."

This is it. Sena memorized the statement a few minutes ago—he can still see the paper in front of him. _I would like to take this opportunity to say…_

So many lights. So many cameras. So many bodies leaning toward him, so many waiting faces. His teammates in the crowd are like complete strangers, like Sena's never gone out to have a beer with them, like he didn't once drive at least six of them home from a bar at four a.m. and let them crash on his floor. Like he's never met their girlfriends, their wives, attended christenings and weddings. Like he's never been to a funeral and held someone's shoulder as they wept over a father's body.

None of them were there when Sena's grandmother died. When they found out later from a magazine, long after the fact, they were speechless that he hadn't told them.

(But someone else was there.)

The crowd of journalists is restless. Someone coughs.

The manager shifts his weight meaningfully.

Sena really only has one thing left. Sitting in a press room full of people he barely knows, with who knows how many more complete strangers watching him from production rooms right now waiting for him to tell them his business, it's as clear as the green eyeshield of his youth, which sits on the desk at home next to an old laptop.

Sena stands up.

"I've been told," he says, and what grown man's voice is that coming out of his mouth, "that I should come up here and help people feel comfortable around me."

That isn't the statement. The whole press room goes breathlessly quiet. The manager and the owner are motionless with shock.

"I've also been told," he continues, "that if I don't, my contract and my place with the Steelers may come into question."

A swell of noise, at that. The owners are very deliberately not looking at each other. Sena can't see his teammates.

"I love football," he goes on, and it's silent again. "All I've wanted to do for the last ten years is play. It's why I left Japan. It's why I'm an American now."

He pauses.

They're all looking at him.

(He'll find out later that this press conference was broadcast live. What with the whole gay marriage thing at the center stage of politics, the news people decided it was sensational enough to bump the normal afternoon lineup of syndicated shows and throwaway reporting. It doesn't help that it's been a slow week for breaking news, even for the U.S.)

"I've been made to understand, _very clearly_," says Sena, "that a lot of people on the team and off have _concerns_ about my situation. And if I don't read this statement, my career with the Steelers, and probably with the NFL, is very likely to be over."

Now Sena looks at them. At the owners, who are expressionless. At his teammates, who are wide-eyed.

And into the cameras, at someone who's not there.

"OK," says Sena, and steps away from the table.

The press room explodes. There's no other word for it. But it's as if all the noise and movement is happening somewhere else. Sena moves through it like his own eye of calm, walking inexorably toward the door. He ignores the questions, the mics and cameras pushed into his face. He ignores the manager, the owners, his teammates, everyone. Everyone except the jersey with his number on it.

(It's the only thing in the room that's still, standing quietly and unnoticed in the back.)

Sena isn't sure how he gets out of the building. He just knows that he's in a cab, and he's telling the guy, "Squirrel Hill," and giving him a street.

(Yoichi chose this neighborhood. Sena still doesn't now why.)

The first person who talks to him after the press conference turns out to be their doorman.

He's standing there when Sena gets out of the cab. He looks a little wide-eyed, and the portable junk radio in his pocket explains why. When Sena walks by without the usual _hello, how are you_, the doorman follows him with his eyes and murmurs a low, thickly accented _Wow_.

Sena gets upstairs in time to answer the phone.

(He didn't mean to. Just habit.)

"Holy _shit_," says Panther.

"Yeah," says Sena. He sounds tired even to him.

"Turn on the TV," he tells Sena.

Sena does.

And sees Yoichi's face.

(_How did they know?_ is the first thing Sena thinks, but that's stupid. It's not like they were trying very hard to hide it.)

They caught him just outside his office building. He's holding a Blackberry on which he's obviously been watching the press conference, and his car's being brought around. Reporters and bystanders are mobbing him, shouting questions and waving phones, cameras, more Blackberries.

He looks…thrown. Like the Ginza M16 _just_ missed him.

Sena's never seen that look on Yoichi's face before. He doesn't think anyone else has either.

(Like he can't fucking _believe_ this is happening.)

When someone puts a mic to his face, the first thing Yoichi says, in a soft, wondering voice, is, "_Fuck."_

And then Sena's smiling for the first time in a long, long while.


End file.
